


Time Works

by heroictype



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Carlos is a Good husband, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Post Episode 150
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 19:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20051440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heroictype/pseuds/heroictype
Summary: Poorly, or not at all. Like love. Unscientifically. In mysterious ways, mostly.Night Vale has changed, whether or not its citizens know.





	Time Works

**Author's Note:**

> god idk I'm just emotional and pumped for August 1st so I wrote this all at once tonight
> 
> also we still don't have a "Good Husband" tag so I'm using both the formal tag and an accurate one
> 
> content note for anxiety, accidental pregnancy, and alcohol

Three o'clock in the morning. That meant something now. 

Time, lost sleep, sweat, dreams. All soaked into the sheets. It felt like the AC was off for some reason. Why would the AC be off? It was not Pioneer Day again, yet. The clock was still on, red digits leaking onto Cecil's lacquered night stand. 

Three-oh-one, now. His shirt was damp against his back. His arm was trapped under Carlos' back, so he couldn't really roll over to see the clock. He could only lie there, and glance at it, and not fall back asleep. He tried to ease his arm free, as Carlos' warmth had broken into the heat of deep sleep, the heat of a summer night that contradicted every lecture on desert safety and survival from his boy scout days.

Almost forty years ago now. That meant something. 

Carlos made a sound. An abrupt sigh, a heavy breath. His lungs catching up with the rest of him. Cecil thought that this meant he had not been gentle enough, although Carlos would not have understood it that way. 

"Ceec?" 

"It's nothing. Go back to sleep."

"Mmm? Mmm-no, hold on..." Carlos protested, and rolled onto his side. 

Cecil caught Carlos' hand as it slipped over his stomach. He squeezed, kissed Carlos' knuckles, and then, delicately, tucked his husband's hand between them so that he could sit up. He whispered, "I just need a drink of water."

He closed the bathroom door behind him, and thought, _ this is what mirrors are for _, and his heart quivered in his throat, but his thoughts were running away from him now, his thoughts were heat-haze-

_ This is a moment that belongs to a mirror, I should lean on the countertop, and I should look, look in and really _see- 

He did not touch the black drape. It hung, still and opaque. His heartbeat throbbed in his skull, rushing in his ears, eating into his perception of space. He did want some water. That had been true, still was. He had frightened himself now, and if he grabbed the tap, then his knuckles might brush the cloth behind it. He might touch the mirror. Well, he couldn't, but he might come as close as he could. 

Nearly forty-five years ago, his mother had warned him. She had looked into his eyes, and he had looked back, wide, grinning, knowing only the attention of someone who loved him. She had looked into his eyes, until he giggled, but she had never laughed. 

That meant something now. He had been too young to understand then, but he had broken the moment. A moment, a mirror. And he was old enough to understand now, it hadn't been his fault.

He just, he needed some water. That was all. He reached for his glass by the sink, a novelty glass with fading paint: S my's Ultima lic ria. Half the _ S _ was gone, too, worn away by his thumb over the years. There was a knock on the door. He dropped the glass. 

It shattered. 

The door opened. The glass shattered under the sharp, orange light, and now what had been maybe three-quarters of a pizza slice were fragments of cartoon eyeballs on fragments of lumpy yellow background. 

Carlos leaned in through the doorway, speaking past a hand over his mouth. "Aww, honey! Are you okay? Oh, I'm so sorry, I know that glass was your favorite, I didn't mean-"

"I know," Cecil said, too quickly. He reached out over the shards. Carlos took his hand tightly, and Cecil's pulse softened, or at least, throbbed less behind his eyes. And then Carlos let go, and blew Cecil an apologetic kiss. 

Carlos said, "I'll go grab a broom. And some slippers. Closed-toed footwear is very important for safety. So you stay right where you are until I've got some, okay? Don't move!"

Cecil did move, but it was to lean back and brace himself against the counter. It had been around ten minutes, probably. Three-eleven in the morning. That meant he was never getting his glass back. It had lasted him over thirty-five years. He felt something pulling in his chest, testing the connection between his heart and its vessels.

He would just have to find a new one. 

* * *

The house was quiet without Roger. 

The house was quiet with Roger, but it was a different kind of quiet. There were ripples: traffic through the open window. The humming fridge. The sound of the traffic coming in through the open window tearing out the doorway that he had thoughtfully left open for them. But otherwise, the quiet had settled, with no young voice to ask Earl about lunch, or to drive him to meet his friends in the sand wastes. 

Roger was at his mother's. Roger's mother had once been Earl's girlfriend, and now they had a custody agreement. It was all amicable.

What had happened was this: Earl had been nineteen for exactly one year. During that year, he had dated a young woman, and they had sex. They used birth control. It worked. They'd graduated college and gone their separate ways. Several years later, after Earl had established himself in an upscale kitchen, they tried again as adults. As independent adults, anyway. 

They had sex. They used birth control. It failed. They talked about what to do - if they wanted to let the pregnancy become a child. If she wanted that, most importantly. 

She did. And then, they did. They had decent means and familial support. They could make their life work with a child in it, they thought. They turned out to be wrong. They could not make their life work at all, but, in the end, they had made their lives work with a child in it. They were better co-parents than partners. 

It was all perfectly amicable, as long as they both remembered that the other existed. It had been that way for as long as Earl remembered now, too. Their lawyers had both had a lot to say to him, regarding the fact that he had picked Roger up for the school year a few years back and never returned. 

But there had been a custody agreement, and Earl had always adhered to it perfectly. Hadn't he? He'd asked Roger's mother. Didn't she remember all the time she had spent with their son over the years?

She did. No one asked Roger what he remembered. Earl didn't ask, because he couldn't bear to. He couldn't guess his co-parent's motivation, and it was better not to try. Better to just leave things as amicable. 

The Faceless Old Woman had been disappointed by just how amicable it was. She'd wanted some drama. Humans were good at drama, but all that had happened was this: Roger's mother rang the doorbell. Earl clapped his son on the shoulder and asked if he had everything. Roger nodded silently and shrugged his duffel bag up on his shoulder, and he left without saying anything.

The house was usually quiet, even with Roger. 

But there was texture, or tension, or there was something, anyway. The Faceless Old Woman had opened the window to let the traffic in as a kind of protest, and to disrupt the specific quiet that settled over the house. Earl closed the window before he left, so that he could lock the door on his way out. 

He was an adult with a social life, and time to spend. He had plans that afternoon with an old friend and his husband. They would provide the groceries, the knives, and some labor, because cooking together could be a joyful labor as long as no one was paying you to do it. He would provide the rest of the labor, and his choice of wine. 

Several hours later, there was a roast in Cecil and Carlos' oven, gleaming with lead-free glaze that Earl had brushed on just so. Potatoes topped with pencil shaving crust and casserole dish of green beans waited in the warming drawer underneath. The bottle of wine was down about halfway, although not all of that had actually been drunk yet. All three men were feeling pleasant and companionable, not watching a movie while they waited for the roast to finish. 

Carlos volunteered to get up to check on it. It took him a minute and three kisses to untangle himself from his husband. 

"So, how are things back at your place?" Cecil asked, draped over the armrest of the couch to face Earl. "Enjoying some peace and quiet?"

Earl sipped. He said, "It's quiet."

Cecil straightened. "But you're not enjoying it?"

"Well, I'm not… not enjoying it. But it's different. It's like, I'd just gotten used to things being one way, and now it's another…"

"Oh, yeah, I totally know what you-"

"But that's not true, either. It's been like this for a long time. I mean, I've shared custody of Roger for… for most of my adult life."

"Well, of course. But that doesn't mean it can't be tough," Cecil offered sympathetically. 

"Of course?"

"Well… Yeah. Yeah, of course?"

"No. Not of course. Because it's new, isn't it? It's always been this way, but not for long."

Cecil was silent. Cecil was watching the movie, Earl realized.

Earl leaned forward in his chair. "You know what I mean, right? Don't you, Cecil? I can't… That's the only way I can describe it, but you… How would you describe it?"

Cecil picked up his glass, but did not drink. He twirled it between his fingers, and closed his eyes. "I wouldn't. I wouldn't describe it, Earl."

"But that's what you do, right?"

Cecil treated him to an odd half-smile, as if there had ever been a normal one. Here, he saw an out. "Actually, that's more Carlos' territory. I'm just a humble reporter."

"Oh, really?" Earl looked over Cecil's shoulder, as Carlos came back into the room. Cecil looked behind him, and then to Earl again, shaking his head minutely. Earl hesitated as Carlos came around to take his seat. In the end, he took a gulp of his own wine and caught Cecil's eye defiantly. "Hey, Carlos. What do you think?"

Carlos nodded, and began ticking off items on his fingers. "The roast isn't done yet. The sky is a perfect, cloudless blue, and how often does that happen? I'm pretty worried about it. This movie has a lot of scientific inaccuracies, so maybe we could try another?"

Carlos had not heard what they were talking about.

Earl said, "Uh, sure! But that's not what I meant. I meant, what do you think about the fact that, things haven't been the way they've always been for long."

"Always is a fallacy."

"He's right, you know," Cecil marvelled, and kissed Carlos' cheek. "My brilliant scientist…"

"Okay, fine. But, like… Things have been this way for a while. You know, just things. Life. Except, actually, it's been… two months, at most. No. Almost a month and a half."

Carlos took stock of his current sensory input. He could see Earl, still forward in his seat, eager in an almost biting way. He could also feel his husband, the body pressed against his, the fingers wrapped tight around his shoulder. 

"I haven't studied that yet, so it would be irresponsible of me to say," Carlos said carefully. "But I think that I like how things are now. I think that maybe I'll study it, but I'd rather enjoy this state of being, this... _right now_, you know? Than pick it apart." 

"I think this is far more entertaining than the movie," the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lived in their home crooned from somewhere above the couch. "But lay off on the insect treatments, okay? I'm running out of snacks." 

She was just glad they hadn't gone to a restaurant, or somewhere that was not a home. She'd hoped to keep tabs on the fidgety one, the one who was a mass of sloshing darkness inside, and she could do that just fine here. She could do that in all homes at once. Time had never been her problem.

* * *

Maureen still lived with her parents, so she joined Michelle at her apartment after work most nights. It was a small place, capturing perfectly the idea of bare bones. Most of the decor that there was, was skull themed. Skull-patterned cushions on a built-it-yourself couch. Skull-patterned bedding. 

All the mugs were just skulls with the jaws removed. There were mostly mugs in the kitchen. One plate, a scattering of forks, and Michelle hadn't even filled the hot milk drawer yet. That was millennial life: a floating existence, easy to uproot. She'd have a hot milk drawer one day, if she ever settled down.

Maybe it would be their hot milk drawer. That'd be nice, they both thought, but they didn't know how to approach such a personal subject with each other yet. So they kept bouncing on Michelle's carpet. They were recording a hopcore album together. That was a subject they could handle. 

They could also handle the neighbors below them, who were throwing shoes and rocks and occasionally fruit at their ceiling to express their displeasure. Maureen had brought over a tube of wolf spider insulation that night. She had poured it down the vents, and then super-glued the vents shut. 

It'd take a few days, Maureen promised, but soon they'd have a lot less editing to do. Maureen was pretty good at editing - she'd had a lot of experiencing working with auditory media, which was exactly why she hated it. So Michelle handled that, but Maureen didn't mind pitching in to lighten the load. 

Michelle wouldn't have minded, either way. She liked editing what they made together. She heard it more closely than anyone that way, even Maureen herself. She'd select a tiny clip of their breathing and loop it, under a second, again and again and again and. Until it had been several seconds, and then she pressed _ delete _, and their breathing was gone forever. 

Michelle didn't know how to feel about that, but it curdled in her chest, and as long as Maureen stayed with her, she'd have time to figure things out.

They'd just kind of been doing this. Michelle had just locked up the shop, like always, when her phone buzzed. It was Maureen, asking if Michelle wanted to hang. Michelle did, and invited Maureen over. Michelle had gone home, like always, just letting her feet deal with the problem of navigation. 

And then, like always, Maureen had been waiting by the door to the apartment. 

It had never happened before, and one day, Maureen would have a key, and also not live with her parents anymore. But until that day, meeting Maureen outside was what it meant to come home.

* * *

The bleachers of the Night Vale High School gymnasium were mostly empty. The Night Vale High wheelchair basketball team was in its off-season, but they were holding a scrimmage that day to stay sharp. It wasn't something that demanded any audience, but it had one. A loose collection of bored siblings tagging along with supportive parents. A few peers trying to look bored, like they were only here for want of anything else to do, although they obviously had crushes on team members. 

Cecil, Carlos, Steve, and Abby sat together in the front row. Steve, as assistant coach, occasionally called out encouragement, or a suggestion here and there. Cecil, as a doting uncle, did the same. Whenever a husband jumped up to offer their input, Abby and Carlos, leaning back on the bleachers, shared a smile. 

Congratulations were in order after the game, of course. Janice high-fived her parents and uncles before heading to the locker room. Carlos volunteered to grab some snacks from the vending machine; it was still early and warm, and the gators would be too busy sunning themselves by the doors to be an effective barrier. 

Abby left to bring the car around, in part just because she could, just to enjoy the knowledge that she could leave her husband and brother in the same room, and no one would get hurt. 

"Hard to believe she's gonna be graduating in a year." Steve shook his head. "They grow up so fast."

Cecil was actually silent as they left the gym. "Oh, god! She is. Wow. Well, she's growing into a great young woman."

"Uh-huh. She's got a lot of great people to look up to. Her mother's a real winner. And her uncles aren't half-bad, either." Steve chuckled. He often did this. 

"Yes, well. Her dad is also… a good guy." Cecil said, after clearing his throat. Steve often chuckled, and this still annoyed him. God, it was so annoying. But Steve was a good guy, and more importantly: "A really solid dad, yup."

"We do the best we can with the time we've got. Just gotta hope it's enough." 

"Is it ever?"

The hallway was empty, choked with the absence of students and teachers. Their steps echoed off the lockers. 

Steve agreed with the point. "No. I guess not."

Cecil thought about Janice. She had grown and changed so much. That was what childhood was. There was no stillness in childhood. She was hurtling, always, at speeds that would have made him sick now. He had done the same thing, but. 

It just all felt impossible. He'd been a community radio show host since before she was even born, and he would stay that way until someone pried the microphone from his cold, dead hands. Probably, this would happen literally. That was exactly what he wanted. 

It had been what he wanted, once. He had been a community radio show host for twenty-five years, and yes, he would stay that way. So, nothing changed. Or, everything did, and he couldn't understand or follow along in any meaningful way. He just reported on it. 

Soon, his niece would be graduating high school. But he would still be a radio host. His purpose would not change. His identity would not change. There was something in his chest, pulling. Something testing the connection between his heart and its vessels.

He could just say: _ nothing will change. This is how it is _, until that was true. 

"Hey, are you doing okay? You're pretty quiet."

"What?" And then, realizing the question left a gap Cecil did not want to fill, he said, "Uh, yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay. You're just not usually quiet."

"I am perfectly capable of being quiet, Steve."

He was. He could be quiet. Sometimes, he even liked it. Curled up on the couch next to his husband, Carlos pressing idle kisses over his collarbone, his head tipped up to invite them. Quiet in the middle of a movie, or when they read on their phones before bed. 

Quiet at the dinner table, as he and Carlos delighted in Earl's cooking too much to compliment it right away. 

Quiet listening to Michelle's newest apiary arrangement, which she most certainly did not want his old-fashioned opinion of. 

Quiet, rapt in the audience of Janice's third ballet fight, the last before she'd given it up for basketball captaincy. 

And even in his studio, waiting for the weather to finish. 

They left the high school, and stepped into the bright afternoon. Carlos was already waiting outside with packages of gator jerky and orange juice. Cecil took some snacks, mostly to free his husband's hand for holding. He kissed Carlos on the cheek, and thought, _ I want this _, so he kissed Carlos again, and then Carlos kissed him, and that frantic pull in his chest snapped. There was something spreading inside of him, a liquid sensation like internal bleeding, but freeing. 

His identity would not change, nor would it be limited. He could be a radio host, and not only that. With time, he would learn what else.

* * *

Cecil cleared their table at Big Rico's while Carlos settled the check. When the scientist came back, he set down something new. It was a novelty glass. The paint was crisp and bright. The motto, "No one does a slice like Big Rico. No one," was printed on it, where _ Big Rico _ was written in the logo font.

"Here, babe. I got this for you."

"Ooh, Carlos! I love it, aw! Thank you!"

"Of course. I mean, it's just to replace the one that broke."

"Yeah, but it's from you. That means… everything."

Actually, he could find a metaphor in it. That was his territory, more than description. He could draw a line, a narrative arc, from what had broken to what he held in his hands now. Something old and faded and certainly serviceable, but just not representative of where he ate lunch anymore, much less who he was. 

Also, Carlos had gotten it for him. So, seriously. Cecil loved it.

"As long as you like it."

"I do. I love it." Cecil held the gift to his chest in both hands, and kissed Carlos with it still between them. 

Then he thought the better of it, and broke off long enough to set it down. It needed to at least make it home with them. They kissed again, not for long, but embracing fully this time. They gathered up the leftovers, and Cecil held the door for Carlos on the way out.

"After you, Doctor!"

He really did have a brilliant husband, after all. Always was a fallacy. They were _ now _, and that was enough. 


End file.
